IN: Appeals Court Rules RSO Parent Can’t Attend Son’s School
A registered sex offender previously able to attend his son’s school activities per a trial court-granted request was denied that exception Monday when the Indiana Court of Appeals determined an amended statute barred him from entering school property.
Upon pleading guilty to child solicitation in 2010, Douglas Kirby received a 10-year sex-offender registration requirement and an 18-month sentence, suspended to probation. Although his probation conditions forbade Kirby from entering schools, he received an exception to attend his son’s school activities.
Three years after completing probation, however, Indiana Code section 35-42-4-14 made it a Level 6 felony for a “serious sex offender” to knowingly or intentionally enter school property. At that time, Kirby was still attending his son’s school events but ultimately had to stop, as child solicitation was a qualifying offense under the statute. A post conviction court denied Kirby’s request for relief when he argued that he did not “knowingly” plead guilty because he didn’t know at that time that he would be eventually barred from entering school property. He further asserted that the new statute was an unconstitutional ex post facto law because it added punishment to an already-committed crime.
When Kirby filed a declaratory judgment action, Howard Superior Court found the statute unconstitutional as applied to his circumstances after noting that he had been previously able to attend his son’s school functions and sporting events before the statute’s amendment.
But an Indiana Court of Appeals reversed that judgment when it found the statue was not unconstitutional under the “intent-effects” test in State of Indiana v. Douglas Kirby, 18A-PL-2334.
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So banishment laws protect children and are non-punitive.
Hasn’t this type of thinking already been debunked?
Inhumane and a punishment to the child….. when do they realize the collateral victimization they are causing
This is so sad… We get so excited when it seems the wheels of justice are finally going our way. But, then we get a ridiculous ruling like this. We are simply going one step forward, but the system is fighting us to two steps backward, and we are losing the war.
With all the youth in this country needing father and mother involvement in their lives, here we have a court denying that involvement. I am convinced that the legal system today can find anything it wants to either be constitutional or un-constitutional at their whelm. We need to get to a state in this country where constitutional or un-constitutional is found in the specific words of the constitution and not in case law.
It never ceases to amaze me that a person is able to do something one day and poof the next day, that same person cannot do the same thing because of some perceived great risk. So much BS. One can only hope that those who legislate such idiocy can walk in the shoes of someone like this dad.
Funny how the Legislature’s are dictating compliance and not a judge, How is it that the law change can effect one after the fact.